Parents from a Seogwipo school were given a hands-on environmental and educational experience on Wednesday, June 11, as ecology experts gave a guided tour of Seonheul Gotjawal, one of Jeju’s unique woodland sites.

Twenty parents of students at Hyodon Middle School joined the class as part of provincial efforts to be the first World Environmental Capital by 2020 and promote environmental awareness and green lifestyles among the citizenry.

The guides, Jo Jae-young and Yang Seon-sun, work at the Sustainable Environmental Education Center, which was established in 2008 and has provided environmental education to 20,000 Jeju residents. The center became an Asia Climate Change Center in 2011, and last year was also made the Jeju Secretariat for the World Network of Island and Coastal Biosphere Reserves program.

The center organizes a variety of educational experience programs such as waste management for infants, woodland play therapy for elementary students, green lifestyles workshops for teenagers and horticulture classes for adults. They also have a purpose-built education center for recycling and ecology in Hoecheon-dong, Jeju City.

A woodland classroom The tour began at 10 a.m. at the Seonheul Gotjawal - “rocky forest” in Jeju dialect - site in Jocheon-eup, northeast Jeju, a habitat recognized for its ecological value in the Jeju Declaration arising from the IUCN’s 2012 World Conservation Congress held on Jeju sland

The education began from the moment the group entered the woodland gates. “This is horangipul [tiger grass] and it is valued for stopping bleeding,” said Jo, who is a scientist, ecologist, historian and ceramist. As he sniffed at a clover-like plant and scrubbed it on his arm he said, “They sell this for high prices in cosmetics shop, yet here it is abundant.”Also known as Centalla Asiatica, or Asiatic pennywort, the eye-opener was a sign of the kind of valuable tidbits we were to be treated to throughout the morning. It wasn’t long after that Jo again told us of the worth of the forest, stating that the phytoncides, volatile organic compounds released by trees as protection from fungi and bacteria, are beneficial to health and lower blood pressure.“These enter through our lungs and pores and help people with atopy, asthma or allergies. The effect is strongest when you breath deeply,” something I intuitively understood from my regular woodland runs, but now had scientific backing for.

Moving deeper into the forest, Jo brought our attention to the precarious grounding for trees in gotjawal, pointing out how the roots cling to anything around them, forcing trees to embrace each other or grab vice-like onto lone rocks to compensate for the thin, rocky soils. It is no surprise that such a porous environment leads to a lack of groundwater in gotjawal areas, but the Seonheul tract includes an internationally important Ramsar wetland, Dongbaekdongsan, with another, the lesser-known “banmot,” just outside the official boundaries.

In a quiet aside while we walk, Yang explains that from the presence of such water we can deduce the type of lava below, with wetlands being located in areas of “pahoehoe” lava; in the areas which don’t hold water it is mostly “aa” lava.

▲ Photo courtesy Kim Jinmi

The butterfly effect Of course, all this new information was immensely satisfying from a personal perspective, but the aim of the adult education provided by the center is a diffusion of ecological consciousness across society. In this it seems to have succeeded, at least by initial responses.”I have taken notes, recorded video and audio, and taken pictures. I am going to write it up and make a video of what I have been told today,” said Ko Seon-ah of Seogwipo City. Ko is the vice-president of the Seogwipo Women’s Association and plans to share what she learned at the next group meeting. Another Seogwipo City resident, Yang Hae-sok spoke of her new-found motivation to engage her children with Jeju’s environment, despite having visited the woods many times before. “Next time we come I will be able to explain some more about what we see around us.”

As we reached the end of our route one word was heard most: shame. The mothers - their were no fathers present - realized how little they knew of Jeju’s history and culture, which is deeply entwined with the gotjawal rocks and roots. It seemed an epiphany, however, as they boarded the coach vowing never again to take Jeju’s ecological riches for granted.